THE RICH MAN'S EIGHT TRACK TAPE contains tracks from the ATOMIZER LP, the HEADACHE EP, and the HEARBEAT single.
Big Black: Steve Albini, Santiago Durango, Dave Riley.
THE RICH MAN'S EIGHT-TRACK TAPE combines Big Black's debut, ATOMIZER, and a pair of singles. If you are looking for rage and anger in your music, look no further. The opening track, "Jordan, Minnesota," is a narrative based on an alleged child-sex cult in the town of its title--the track contains heavy breathing, a fuzzed-out bass line, and some punishing machine drumming. And the beginning of the second track, "Passing Complexion," is enough to indicate that things aren't going to get more pleasant. This record is riddled with disjointed shards of guitar shrapnel; precise, pounding drum machines; and Steve Albini's manic, crazed vocal/shout.
The densely-produced "Kerosene" is a slow-burn, first-person narrative about pyromania, with astonishingly brittle, crystalline guitar tones occasionally soaring over the bottom-heavy rhythm section. "Fists of Love" is another pile-driver of a song, with a lyric that begins "Feel my hands," repeated over and over, allowing listeners to draw whatever conclusions they may. "I don't know why we come here / Guess I just like the bang," the opening lines to a brutal live version of "Cables," neatly sums up the Big Black experience. The liner notes feature an amusing diatribe against CD technology--hence this disc's title.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (2/4/93, p.66) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...What the Velvet Underground's WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT and NEVER MIND THE BULLOCKS, HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS were to their eras, ATOMIZER was to the Eighties--an album that confronted the horror of the everyday with a sound to match..."
Spin (3/93, p.78) - "...Big Black took guitar as we know it to new wailing, scraping, aggressive heights--one of the most challenging, intelligent, and distinctive groups to emerge in the mid '80s....ATOMIZER is near perfect, sporting innumerable layers of noise and differing musical styles delivered with unmatchable power..."
Entertainment Weekly (1/22/93, p.57) - "...Barbed with oblique political venom and the most abrasive sounds ever coaxed out of electric guitars, this reissue of a mid-'80s compilation from Chicago's uncompromising Big Black seethes with scrawny punk antagonism and virulent musical imagination..." - Rating: B
NME (Magazine) (11/28/93, p.30) - 10 - Classic - "...[ATOMIZER] remains Big Black's finest work, ten tales from America's butt end. Rarely before or since has the Land Of The Free sounded so disgusting or so appallingly attractive...sheer unhinged fury..."
